Iconic Ontario canoe club powered by an 'Olympic' family

Sean Fitz-Gerald, Postmedia News06.15.2012

Canadian paddler Mark Oldershaw trains on the course at the Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park in suburban Beijing on August 7, 2008. Oldershaw booked his ticket to the London Games after winning gold at a World Cup canoe and kayak competition on May 19, 2012.

OAKVILLE, Ont. - Scott Oldershaw motioned up the hill to where the old sewage treatment plant once stood. Abandoned before his family moved in, the building had no heating, no lighting and not a single bathroom.

"That's where we started," he said with a smile.

Oldershaw was standing a few hundred yards from the original site, now a parking lot, as another morning workout session ended at the Burloak Canoe Club, perched on the banks of Sixteen Mile Creek, a half-hour drive west of Toronto. What the Oldershaw family has launched from those banks is one of Canada's most enduring Olympic traditions.

Five family members have competed at the Olympics over three generations, a run which will continue this summer, when Scott's son Mark paddles his canoe in London. And the City of Oakville has renamed the stretch of road that separates the old clubhouse from the new clubhouse, naming it for an honourary member of the Oldershaw family, London-bound kayaker Adam van Koeverden.

"Every strong building needs a foundation, and every organization needs people who are devoted and committed wholly to the cause," van Koeverden said. "And the Oldershaw family is exactly that foundation. They are, as a group, and all in their own way, completely integral in the growth and progression of this sport in Ontario."

Bert Oldershaw was the first.

He made his Olympic debut in London in 1948, and would go on to paddle again in Helsinki (1952) and Melbourne (1956). He founded a canoe club in Mississauga, Ont., in 1957 and was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 2004. He died two years later, at 84.

His sons Dean and Reed represented Canada in Munich (1972) and Montreal (1976), and his youngest, Scott, competed in Los Angeles (1984). In 2008, his grandson, Mark, made his Olympic debut in Beijing, finishing 10th in the C-1 500 metres.

Adam Oldershaw, Mark's brother, is head coach at the Burloak Canoe Club. Their mother, Connie, is in charge of development at the club.

"My feeling, moving into that third generation, it starts making it feel sort of dynastic, for lack of a better word," Adam Oldershaw said with a smile. "There is a significant family history."

The family moved the club into its current home in 1992, after 12 years spent inside the old sewage treatment plant. More than 100 boats are stored behind six garage doors, with another compound built across the lawn to handle the overflow. The club has more than 200 members, who range from those just learning the sport to those preparing to paddle onto the world's stage this summer.

Their stretch of the creek is calm, quiet and still. Banks of trees help to protect the water from the wind. It seems distant from downtown Oakville, even though it is within a few blocks of its shops and pedestrian traffic. Scott Oldershaw said that deer, foxes and other animals have been spotted a few minutes up the creek, which he said was tinged brown with mud, and not because of pollution.

"We've been swimming in it for years," he said. "So far, no mutations or anything."

After a pause, he smiled.

"Maybe it's the water that's making us fast," he said.

Other clubs have better courses, though.

"Is it ideal? I don't know if it's the ideal spot," Scott said. "We don't have a straight course. For 1,000 metres, we do a lot of turning. A lot of people will come here and go, 'How do you guys do it?' They can't understand how we produce what we do on this stretch of water."

The club gained its most popular member in 1995, when a newspaper advertisement - publishing the request, "Future champions wanted" - piqued the interest of one single mother. She wanted an after-school activity that would keep her 13-year-old son out of trouble. At the club, the first three people she met were all former Olympians.

And so it was that Adam van Koeverden became a paddler.

He has won gold, silver and bronze Olympic medals in kayak, and has become part of the Oldershaw family. He has spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with them, and said that, in one year of training and competition, he and Mark shared a hotel room for 200 nights.

"Like step-brothers," van Koeverden said with a smile.

Mark Oldershaw had tried other sports when he was younger. He gave lacrosse a try and played hockey with his high school team, but he had always suspected he would end up back on the water. His father was born on Toronto Island. And before he died, his grandfather had become a beachcomber, creating art from whatever interesting objects he could find in the sand, from whatever the water gave back.

"It's just something about the water and the lake," Mark said. "Growing up, once you get used to it, you don't want to leave it. I'm always looking at waterfront property and wanting to get stuff. I definitely feel that pull. And every time I come home from anywhere, as soon as I see the lake, that's when I feel like I'm home."

National Post

sfitzgerald@nationalpost.com

twitter.com/SeanFitz_Gerald

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